Maximianno Cobra

BIOGRAPHY

The formative years: "A young pianist turns conductor"

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1969, Franco-Brazilian Filmmaker and composer Maximianno Cobra started music lessons at 5. When he was 13, his piano teacher, Maria José Repsold, noticing her young pupil's keen interest for composition, his musical life veered quite naturally towards composition and conducting.

At 15, Maximianno Cobra met conductor Alceo Bocchino (a former student and friend of Villa-Lobos and collaborator of Hans Swarowsky) who taught him conducting, counterpoint, fugue and composition. He soon became Bocchino’s assistant and honed his skills for the next three years, working with various Brazilian orchestras and opera houses.

First professional steps: "Music, Theater and Philosophy - the Three Pillars of Emancipation"

In 1989, Maximianno Cobra made his Rio de Janeiro debut at the head of the Brazilian Philharmonic Orchestra. The all-Beethoven program featured pianist Nelson Freire as a soloist. In the aftermath of this hugely successful concert, Maximianno Cobra was appointed music director of the Brazilian Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he held for five years. He was also invited to coach several opera workshops, focusing on training young professional opera singers for the stage.

All along his formative years, Maximianno Cobra had attended theater and philosophy master-classes, two disciplines he considers to be his “second nature”. The works of Spinoza, Nietzsche and Deleuze forged his philosophical and political conscience. Discovering Shakespeare was - in his own words - “an existential upheaval”. As his knowledge of theater deepened, so grew his interest in Konstantin Stanislavsky’s Acting Method, a defining element in his own quest for artistic identity, with a decisive influence on his musical and theater activities, especially conducting and stage directing.

In 1990, a grant enables him to further his studies in Europe, at the Vienna Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst. In spite of the distance, he still keeps strong professional ties to his native land where, at the invitation of Maestro Eleazar de Carvalho, he conducts the Sao Paulo State Symphony and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. He is also the producer and audiovisual director of a concert series for TVE (Brazil’s Ministry of Culture’s public television channel - TV Brazil) featuring the Brazilian Philharmonic and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, under his direction. He made his European debut in 1992 in Paris, at Salle Pleyel, with Orchestre Lamoureux.

A new phase: "Europe - fighting for one’s ideals"

In 1993, Maximianno Cobra toured France with the Hungarian State Opera and the Budapest Philharmonic, performing Beethoven’s Fidelio and the complete Brahms symphonies. This first collaboration influenced the course of his professional life: over the next ten years, his schedule included regular guest-conducting appearances in the Hungarian capital. In 1999, the label TEMPUS Collection entrusted him with the destiny of Europa Philharmonia, a newly-founded ensemble bringing together Europe's elite orchestra musicians for studio recording projects using the latest media technology. Maximianno Cobra has already conducted, produced and directed more than thirty recordings for TEMPUS Collection, including a Best-Seller DVD-VIDEO of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

In parallel, Maximianno Cobra completed a Ph.D. in musicology and music history under the supervision of Professor Serge GUT, graduating in 1999 from Paris-Sorbonne/Paris IV University. His dissertation: Les Symphonies de Ludwig van Beethoven : une etude analytique, critique et historique en vue d’une nouvelle edition followed up on Prof. Willem Retze Talsma’s research and focused on the issues of Beethoven’s tempi and metronome markings. This in-depth study marks another decisive turn: from then on he’ll dedicate himself to the TEMPUS theory.

Maximianno Cobra’s work has been reviewed in various musicology journals, notably the Revue de Musicologie de la Suisse Romande, and is mentionned in Carl Honores’ best-seller : In Praise of Slow (Eloge de la lenteur).

A respected musicologist, he was appointed supervisor at the Mozart Center at the invitation of Philippe Autexier and responsible of the French Beethoven research institute Centre d’Etudes Beethoveniennes de France.

The present: "In quest of horizontality and horizons" - Filmmaking"

Maximianno Cobra is now dedicating himself to filmmaking, screenwriting, playwriting, composition and, as a conductor, to the development and diffusion of the TEMPUS theory.